History has its own life, it is like a person, both easy-going and self-respecting. ——Yu Qiuyu
On November 28, 1941, in Tangma Village, Liyang County, Jiangsu Province, more than 1,000 people from the brigade headquarters of the 16th Brigade of the Sixth Division of the New Fourth Army and local organs were suddenly surrounded by more than 3,800 Japanese puppet troops who went to the countryside to sweep up.
The enemy situation came too suddenly, and Luo Zhongyi, commander of the 16th Brigade, and Liao Haitao, political commissar, quickly organized the brigade and local party and government organs to prepare for a breakthrough.
Tangma Village is a village with only a hundred villagers in the hills northwest of Liyang County, only one or two kilometers away from the Liwu Road occupied by the Japanese army in the north and the Kuomintang garrison troops in the south.
At that time, the brigade headquarters of the 16th Brigade of the New Fourth Army and the party and government organs of Suwan District were stationed here, and the 16th Brigade Headquarters, government organs, teaching brigades and four companies of the 48th Regiment only had a strength of about 1,000 people.
The Japanese 15th Division had more than 3,000 infantry artillerymen and more than 800 puppet troops who raided Tangma Village. Starting from the strongholds along Liwu Road, it suddenly combined in three directions: northeast, northwest and southwest, to Tangma Village.
At dawn, the sixth and fourth companies of the 48th Regiment were out of action, and the warrior Yin Baosheng was putting up a sentry at Zhuang Xitou, when suddenly he found a group of men and horses on the hillside not far ahead rushing towards here.
He took a closer look; it was a Japanese soldier, and he immediately raised the small pony gun in his hand, snapping, snapping, snapping, firing three shots in a row.
One of the Japanese soldiers walking in front was killed immediately, and the other Japanese soldiers lay down, shooting at the same time and charging forward.
Hearing the sound of gunfire, Luo Zhongyi, commander of the 16th Brigade, and Liao Haitao, political commissar, personally led more than 500 people from four companies into battle, setting up blocking positions to cover the party and government organs in Suwan District to break through and move first.
After dawn, the distant mounds sounded billowing dust, and the Japanese cavalry rushed to participate in the battle. At the same time, the defensive positions of the 16th Brigade's Teaching Brigade also sounded fierce gunfire.
In order to get rid of the enemy's combined attack, brigade commander Luo Zhongyi led the fighters to repel the enemy's charge again and again, but the Japanese army was supported by cavalry, tanks, and artillery, and also occupied an absolute advantage of 3:1 in strength. A bullet from the Japanese army hit the brigade commander in the head, and Luo Zhongyi was martyred.
In the other direction, while the brigade commander led the troops to take cover, political commissar Liao Haitao commanded the party and government organs and the main force in Suwan District to move quickly, but he took two guards as cover and walked at the end of the line.
Hearing the tragic time of the brigade commander's sacrifice, Political Commissar Liao Haitao was very saddened, and immediately issued a message to the troops to avenge Brigadier Luo and took the lead in rushing toward the encircling Japanese puppet army.
At three o'clock in the afternoon, the party and government organs and the main forces in Suwan District killed and wounded more than 400 Japanese puppet troops at the cost of sacrificing more than 270 fighters, and most of them rushed out of the encirclement of the Japanese army.
But unfortunately, when Liao Haitao was covering the breakthrough of the troops, he fell behind and used machine guns to block the enemy, and was swept by the Japanese machine guns surrounded from the flanks, his body shook a little, fell to the ground, he still returned fire with wounds, and finally died of excessive bleeding.
In the anti-Japanese battlefield, it is rare for units above the brigade level to die at the same time as two commanders in the Japanese army, luo Zhongyi, commander of the 16th Brigade of the New Fourth Army, and Liao Haitao, political commissar.
With their lives and blood, they composed a magnificent song of Chinese people resisting foreign invasion, and if they both did not sacrifice, the founding of the country should at least be generals.
After the death of Luo Zhongyi, commander of the 16th Brigade of the New Fourth Army, and Liao Haitao, political commissar, the news reached the military headquarters, and all the personnel of the military department were extremely distressed, and Commander Chen Yi ordered the whole army to mourn bitterly.
After the sacrifice of Luo Zhongyi and Liao Haitao, the people of Tangma remembered the heroic deeds of these two revolutionary martyrs.
On November 28, 2006, on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the Battle of Tangma, the Memorial Hall of the Jiangnan Headquarters of the New Fourth Army awarded the fifth grade class of Houzhou Central Primary School in Liyang City, Jiangsu Province as the first batch of "Luo Zhongyi and Liao Haitao Classes". This commemorates these two generals who gave their passion and blood to the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan.